A poet with extraordinary power for metaphor

Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Shirley Geok-lin Lim was born in Malacca, Malaysia, came over to the United States as a Fulbright and Wien International Scholar in 1969, and completed her Ph.D. in British and American Literature at Brandeis University in 1973. She has published two critical studies, Nationalism and Literature: Writing in English from the Philippines and Singapore (1993) and Writing South East/Asia in English: Against the Grain (1994), and has edited/co-edited many critical volumes, including Reading the Literatures of Asian America; Approaches to Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior; Transnational Asia Pacific; and Power, Race and Gender in Academe; and three special issues of journals, Ariel (2001) on microstates, Tulsa Studies, on transnational feminism, and Studies in the Literary Imagination, on contemporary Asian American literature.

Her work has appeared in journals such as New Literary History, Feminist Studies, Signs, MELUS, ARIEL, New Literatures Review, World Englishes, and American Studies International. Among her recent honors, Lim has received the UCSB Faculty Research Lecture Award (2002) and the Chair Professorship of English at the University of Hong Kong (1999 to 2000), as well as the University of Western Australia Distinguished Lecturer award, Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer award, and t J.T. Stewart Hedgebrook award. She has served as chair of Women’s Studies and is currently professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Lim is also recognized as a creative writer. Her first collection of poems, Crossing the Peninsula (1980), received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. She has also published four volumes of poetry: No Man's Grove (1985); Modern Secrets (1989); Monsoon History (1994), which is a retrospective selection of her work; and What the Fortune Teller Didn't Say (1998). Bill Moyers featured Lim for a PBS special on American poetry, "Fooling with Words" in 1999, and again on the program “Now” in February 2002.

She is also the author of three books of short stories and a memoir, Among the White Moon Faces (1996), which received the 1997 American Book Award for non-fiction. Her first novel, Joss and Gold (Feminist Press, 2001), has been welcomed by Rey Chow as an “elegantly crafted tale [that] places Lim among the most imaginative and dexterous storytellers writing in the English language today.” She edited/co-edited Asian American Literature; Tilting the Continent: An Anthology of South-east Asian American Writing; and The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology which received the 1990 American Book Award.


Shirley Geok-lin Lim was born in Malacca, Malaysia, came over to the United States as a Fulbright and Wien International Scholar in 1969, and completed her Ph.D. in British and American Literature at Brandeis University in 1973. She has published two critical studies, Nationalism and Literature: Writing in English from the Philippines and Singapore (1993) and Writing South East/Asia in English: Against the Grain (1994), and has edited/co-edited many critical volumes, including Reading the Literatures of Asian America; Approaches to Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior; Transnational Asia Pacific; and Power, Race and Gender in Academe; and three special issues of journals, Ariel (2001) on microstates, Tulsa Studies, on transnational feminism, and Studies in the Literary Imagination, on contemporary Asian American literature.


Her work has appeared in journals such as New Literary History, Feminist Studies, Signs, MELUS, ARIEL, New Literatures Review, World Englishes, and American Studies International. Among her recent honors, Lim has received the UCSB Faculty Research Lecture Award (2002) and the Chair Professorship of English at the University of Hong Kong (1999 to 2000), as well as the University of Western Australia Distinguished Lecturer award, Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer award, and t J.T. Stewart Hedgebrook award. She has served as chair of Women’s Studies and is currently professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Lim is also recognized as a creative writer. Her first collection of poems, Crossing the Peninsula (1980), received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. She has also published four volumes of poetry: No Man's Grove (1985); Modern Secrets (1989); Monsoon History (1994), which is a retrospective selection of her work; and What the Fortune Teller Didn't Say (1998). Bill Moyers featured Lim for a PBS special on American poetry, "Fooling with Words" in 1999, and again on the program “Now” in February 2002.

She is also the author of three books of short stories and a memoir, Among the White Moon Faces (1996), which received the 1997 American Book Award for non-fiction. Her first novel, Joss and Gold (Feminist Press, 2001), has been welcomed by Rey Chow as an “elegantly crafted tale [that] places Lim among the most imaginative and dexterous storytellers writing in the English language today.” She edited/co-edited Asian American Literature; Tilting the Continent: An Anthology of South-east Asian American Writing; and The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology which received the 1990 American Book Award.

Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s first collection of poems, Crossing the Peninsula (1980), received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. She has published five other volumes of poetry: No Man's Grove (1985); Modern Secrets (1989); Monsoon History (1994), a retrospective selection of her work; What the Fortune Teller Didn't Say (1998); and Listening to the Singer (2007), a collection of poems out of Malaysia. Bill Moyers featured Lim for a PBS special on American poetry, "Fooling with Words.” She is also the author of three books of short stories; a memoir, Among the White Moon Faces (1997 American Book Award for non-fiction); two novels, Joss and Gold (2001) and Sister Swing (2006); and a children’s novel, Princess Shawl (2008). Her first novel was welcomed by Rey Chow as an “elegantly crafted tale [that] places Lim among the most imaginative and dexterous storytellers writing in the English language today.” Lim's co-edited anthology The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology received the 1990 American Book Award. She has published critical studies and edited/co-edited many volumes and special issues of journals, including recently Transnational Asia Pacific; Power, Race and Gender in Academe; Asian American Literature: An Anthology; Tilting the Continent: An Anthology of South-east Asian American Writing, and special issues of Ariel, Tulsa Studies, Studies in the Literary Imagination, and Concentric. Her work has appeared in journals such as New Literary History, Feminist Studies, Signs, MELUS, ARIEL, New Literatures Review, World Englishes, and American Studies International. Among her honors, Lim received the UCSB Faculty Research Lecture Award (2002), the Chair Professorship of English at the University of Hong Kong (1999 to 2001), University of Western Australia Distinguished Lecturer award, Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer award, and the J.T. Stewart Hedgebrook award. She has served as chair of Women’s Studies and is currently professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Learning to Love America

because it has no pure products

because the Pacific Ocean sweeps along the coastline
because the water of the ocean is cold
and because land is better than ocean

because I say we rather than they

because I live in California
I have eaten fresh artichokes
and jacaranda bloom in April and May

because my senses have caught up with my body
my breath with the air it swallows
my hunger with my mouth

because I walk barefoot in my house

because I have nursed my son at my breast
because he is a strong American boy
because I have seen his eyes redden when he is asked who he is
because he answers I don’t know

because to have a son is to have a country
because my son will bury me here
because countries are in our blood and we bleed them

because it is late and too late to change my mind
because it is time.

Newcastle Beach

(For Kerrie Coles and Brian Joyce)

At 6 a.m. I set off for the Pacific,

her heaving bosom stretched between

rival lovers gazing from opposite beaches.

Silicate, shell and stone roil beneath her touch,

back and forth, groaning, while she slips

away and toward, teases sun rising

and setting, and the surfer men come daily.

I also adore her, threaded to her fine

eyebrow horizons, changeful swells that raise

my thirst no matter how much I swallow.

I can never be a woman like her,

forever wet, incipiently

violent even when calmed. In Newcastle

young boys and older throw their bodies

passionately at her each morning,

naked male skin carried toward dark rock

and cars. By sides of streets they strip,

wriggle into work clothes, as day

collapses into schools, offices, coal-mines

and their women's arms, awake and sullen

in the world of dry air. They are mermen,

stolen away from their mothers' hips.

And I? Drawn early down to Bogie Hole,

treading the slippery convict-shattered

stone steps, descend to the maddened

slamming of her spittle against tumbled

boulders, gulp the white and yellow sprays

that break, withdraw and break, in digital

seconds never returning. Like our men

moving on to other bodies, while the Ocean

Woman breathes in, breathes out, breathes in,

cradling her surfers past danger and drowning.

Bogie Hole

Before that old crone curse,

arthritis,comes down on me, I walk up Newcastle

Beach to Bogie Hole, where the governor

had a pool carved out of ancient basalt

by Irish convicts. Surf smashes on the rough

hewn blocks thrice every minute

it seems–and white foam sprays in ceaseless

upsurges of power. What power, I ask,

as I peer over the handrails, studying

sea-moss slime-slippery steps cut

into cliff face steep down to Bogie Hole,

studying as if a curious text

the heart skips over, falling in love

with falling, before backing off

from the savor of salt fatalism.

Not yet, my feet say, stepping away.

Today, for the first time I see

dolphins jumping above the surf line,

black fins racing over the Pacific

natural as my feet walking

in sunshine along Bathers' Way.

What has brought me to Newcastle

no one knows, least of all me.

Blue skies and Pacific air the same

as home, leaving home is mere

practice for leaving all, all

the leavings learned again and again,

until goodbye becomes

addictive, the last look

behind, the first look forward,

what you carry everywhere

and everyday. Temporary living

is what childhood taught me.

Packing up, sleeping on others'

mattresses, and always hungry

for the new morning, and night

to be endured, supperless,

sharp as a paring knife peeling

another brown spot.

Writing a poem

(At the Lock Up)

The air is buzzing. Someone near by

is operating a giant machine. He's scrubbing

a just sold building with a high

powered hose. None of us are listening,

although we are each hopeless before

this dizz-dizz-dizz. If it was a monstrous

radiated beetle, we couldn't be more

helpless. It's eating up the hours

as if they were the sweet nectar of day,

which they are. It is impossible

to think or write. Its buzz takes away

feelings, takes over ears, is drilling a hole

in a loose tooth as you sit in history's

dental chair, frantic and still, the drill

hammering gums until only

spit oozes, dribbles, spills over, fills

cavities you didn't know you had,

only the drill lives in your head,

only the sharp dull dizz-dizz-dizz.

This is how the poem ends, dizz-dizz. . . .

Dating
(At the Hunter Street Mall)
I went on another date with my writing today. We've been dating for a long time. I don't know why we keep meeting. It never ends in sex, although sometimes it's led to my reading a book in bed. Often he does not bother to appear. I wait and wait, throat burning in dread, my tight chest overflowing with aches and burrs of anxiety, until I cannot bear the humiliation, even if no one is there, no one's watching, and I don't care, I finally leave, abject and alone, for something else, a nut muffin, or worse, a plate of limp over-salted French fries. I never get really angry. I wish I would, and then maybe I'd say goodbye.

But when he does turn up, I'm fascinated by his blather, it can throw a surprise like an amateur hitting an underhanded blow. Yet I've heard most of his stories so many times I can end his lines for him. You could say I find him a bore, so I don't know why I keep listening.

He's capable of mumbling. Between duhs and ums he may say something I like, and I carry it back in my mouth, imagining it's a bit of worm a magpie crams into the hungry crop of its chick, and I take it out when I am alone, greedy, before I actually swallow it.

We've been dating like this since I was nine. I wouldn't call him a pedophile but he's not a big brother either. No, it's not a healthy relationship, although it isn't exactly sick. And, yes, he's created problems, particularly with girlfriends who get jealous because of his attentions. They don't see how long-suffering I've been. My husband doesn't care. He understands first love comes first. Besides, he's my last love, and they don't offer the same fruit, apples to bananas. I get fed up, today, feeling my age, and want to sit in the shade instead, eavesdropping on busy hummingbirds pillaging fuschias and lilies. They're attractive even if empty-headed. Still, every April, they lay their eggs, and at least one fledging sticks around till summer ends.

Shark Story

I've seen him hobble on one long strong leg,

the other a dangling stump, third a crutch,

in swimming shorts and tee, and sit by Nobby's Beach,

on the wood-slatted bench near the hot parking lot

and sucking surf tucked distant meters away.

He said this sandy stretch, the boast of Newcastle,

appears like acres of salt tears he hadn't shed

when they'd lifted him out of Shark Alley

winters ago, after the juvenile gray snagged

the limb from him, harder to cross with hobble

and crutch and one good leg than he'd first imagined.

Most afternoons between lunch and sunset crowds

he sits watching the black-suited amphibian

boys hurry with bee-waxed boards into the waves.

Yes, they do look like elegant seals in and outof ocean.

Ignore his gaze that says nothing

except wonder where among the particles

of the Pacific his flesh and blood now surge

with the spindrift and its tide, sensation

of thigh and calf and foot and toes clasping

like that bite threshing its fish head still

in the surf most afternoons on Nobby's Beach.